Posts Tagged ‘World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria’

Preparations for the Warlords of Draenor expansion to World of Warcraft continues. Yesterday brought The Iron Tide, the traditional pre-expansion patch with all its many changes. Now Blizzard have done the other now-traditional thing and folded the last expansion’s content into the base World of Warcraft game. That means subscribers who never bought Mists of Pandaria no longer need to, as its landmass and quests are available to all.

In case you’d forgotten, MMO players are crazy. I know: I used to be one. This, though, is a whole new level of dedication to a mind-numbingly repetitive task. A World of Warcraft player named “Doubleagent” (get it?) rolled a Pandaren character and never left the neutral starting zone. Somehow, though, they found a way to hit WoW’s current level cap of 90. And by somehow, I mean they picked a lot of herbs and mined Azeroth hollow. This is not a task congruent with keeping one’s sanity, but when somebody voluntarily sets out to do this, it makes you wonder if they were ever truly sane to begin with.

Whether you’re a sucker for their furry brand of kung-fury or not, World of Warcraft‘s pandas are officially here to stay. Fortunately, Pandaria’s mysterious de-misting actually revealed one of the better WoW expansions in recent memory, so life goes on – and quite merrily at that. But while fresh competitors like Guild Wars 2 continue to be the talk of the town, MoP didn’t quite take the world (Warcraft-flavored or otherwise) by storm. Slow and steady though the process might be, MMOs are evolving. Sure, WoW’s world is bigger than ever, but its every strained lurch is followed by a deafening creak. So what’s next? How does Blizzard plan to keep WoW relevant? Does it involve free-to-play? A return to the Horde vs Alliance glory days? More species of playable bear? During GDC Online, I sat down with production director J. Allen Brack to find out.

As a child, one of my first Real Person (read: PC) games was Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. Back in those days, the Horde and Alliance, well, they didn’t like each other so much. There was, I suppose you could say, a whole lot less crafting and a rather sizable helping of war. But times have changed, and so has the world of Warcraft. For one, it grew a world. That’s fairly significant. But with rather unpleasant-sounding crusades and apocalypse dragons came a certain level of necessary chumminess between the warring factions. According to Blizzard, however, Mists of Pandaria’s first major update is about to (finally) change all of that.

We know World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria has kung-fun pandas in it. I’ve seen it on adverts on the telly and everything. What else does it have in it? Well, if you’ve got seven minutes you can find out, with the below flyover trailer that runs through some of the new zones, enemies, abilities and dungeons to be found in WoW’s fourth expansion. It’s like a timeshare brochure, but with flying ships, angry crab-men and Chinese temples.Read the rest of this entry »

Want to have a panda of your very own without any of the typical muss, fuss, or mists traditionally associated with exotic cow-colored bear ownership? Well, you have two options: 1) foist responsibility onto someone else every time it needs anything other than a warm, fluffy hug or 2) play World of Warcraft. I, of course, prefer the first option, but WoW’s offering isn’t half-bad either. In an upcoming patch, Blizzard plans to remove all expansion-based limits from race selection – including the Pandaren, once Mists of Pandaria launches. You’ll find the bear necessities after the bear-ake. (That second one didn’t really work, did it? Well that’s just unbearab– [sounds of hurling self out a window].)

Blizzard have spent thirteenty-billion dollars on an opening cinematic for their forthcoming Mists Of Pandaria expansion, so I suppose it’s only fair that we all watch it. Then go, “Huh.” And then think, “Wouldn’t it be great if the game looked like that?” And then go back to picking our nails.

World of Warcraft had 10.2 million subscribers in February and now it has 9.1 million. Blizzard have been quick to point out that their ageing behemoth is still the most popular subscription MMO in existence and also to reiterate the cyclical nature of peak subscriptions. They fell before Cataclysm and the fall before Pandaria was expected. It makes sense that people would drop out when they’ve experienced all the content on offer but MMOData.net’s tracking doesn’t show sub levels below 10 million since 2008, at which point growth had been continuous. While subs will most likely recover with the release of the pandas on Sept 25, the returns may continue to diminish. During the earning call there were words about Diablo III as well.

Blizzard likes betas. I’ve never known a company to be quite so willing to let people prod at their work-in-progress game stuff. It’s almost as if they get something out of it in return! My theory is while you play, they take the vast amounts of data that you generate and output it as raw code. That code is then tinted green and displayed on a black background and just continues to scroll day and night. When Blizzard’s monitors have been on too long with no interference from the user, the code is then displayed. Internally I believe this to be called a “Matrix Screen Saver”. So a beta to their upcoming World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria™ was inevitable, because after Diablo III’s launch everyone at Blizzard will be taking some much needed foot-on-table time, and those screens will need looking after. And if you’d like to hop into the Pandaria beta, there are a few instructions for you to follow.Read the rest of this entry »

The chaps at Wowhead’s coverage of a secret press peek at World Of Warcraft’s Mists of Pandaria is 100% better than RPS’s coverage. The trivial detail of us not actually seeing the game is only a technicality: touche, Wowhead. Our coverage of the Terrible Night Of Sleep expansion to Craig’s Weekend is clearly better than yours, though: I was AFK for two hours, but after that spent 5 hours in a raid on Sleepless Dungeon.

If you’re a registered World of Warcraft player, and are willing to commit to a 12 month contract to the game, you can get Diablo III for free. In one of the more confusing offers I’ve seen, Blizzard seem to be rewarding ongoing loyalty to WoW players, rather than actually trying to get new customers, as this is an offer open only to those who have a registered WoW account on or before the 18th October 2011. If that’s you, and you’re willing to add twelve months to your sub, then not only do you get Diablo III whenever it happens to release, but access to the beta for Mists Of Pandaria (still can’t believe that’s really a thing) and a new walkie/flying mount, Tyrael’s Charger.

The forthcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft will be bringing along a revamped talent tree as well as fluffykins up there. Not happy with how players built identically specced characters at their most statistically efficient, Blizzard are hoping their new system will make it more tempting for players to forge their own path through the levels.

Three specilisations will be available for every class with specific spells assigned to each one. Meanwhile, talents are available for every spec in that class, and will be awarded every 15 levels. These talents will be interchangeable as you play, further tempting players to rebuild and experiment with the numbers. Sounds a lot like Diablo 3, come to think of it.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that WoW’s pandas look quite good in motion, but, well, they do. You can see them frolicking in their Asia-themed themepark world below in the Mists of Pandaria trailer. Cute hot air balloons, too.

These Panda types will apparently be a neutral race, with players deciding between alliance and horde once they get past the starting stuff. The pandaren starting area is, also, on the back of a giant turtle. Hmm.Read the rest of this entry »